Suns Think Spurs Had an Illegal Deal to Bring Back Barry

With the truly shocking news coming down that Brent Barry would indeed be returning to the Spurs after the league-mandated 30 days have passed, at least one team doesn't believe for a moment that he was ever considering going anywhere else. Suns' GM Steve Kerr was in hot pursuit of Barry, and may be feeling a little bitter that he couldn't persuade him to finish out the year in Phoenix.

Kerr suggested on a Phoenix radio station it seemed to smell of an illegal, prearranged deal with Seattle GM Sam Presti, a former Spurs executive. "I think maybe there was something behind the scenes there," Kerr told KTAR-AM 620. "If I'm Seattle, I'm not going to let Barry go, I'm going to let Donyell Marshall go. Brent's a guy who is much more productive. Donyell Marshall doesn't have much more left in the tank. Sam Presti used to be in San Antonio as an assistant. Who knows? I don't have any proof."

As we've already discussed, the Spurs are way too smart to do what Dallas did when they had a similar situation going on with Jerry Stackhouse. The problem is not what the Spurs did, but the existence of the rule which allows it to be done. Kerr said it himself: there isn't any proof that the Spurs had a prearranged deal with Barry or the Sonics. So he needs to take out his bitterness over the Shaq trade being a complete disaster on somebody else.